I think you missed the point, or at least what I took to be the point. Nobody who has ever read a classified document, or had a confidential conversation with a government official (of our government or a foreign one) would ever be able to put on a mind reading head band, for fear of leaking information they shouldn’t. People who have run for President in the last fifty years include a former Director of Central Intelligence, a former longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a former US Navy captain, a former US Navy officer who worked on nuclear submarines, several sitting or former Vice Presidents, and several sitting or former Presidents. None of these people would be able to put on a mind reading headband for fear of revealing classified information.
Even setting that concern aside, considering how little public scrutiny major candidates have submitted themselves to in recent elections, it seems incredibly implausible that they would submit themselves to even more public scrutiny in the form of mind reading.
Assuming a Truth Machine can be built at all, building one that doesn’t leak classified intel shouldn’t be a problem. Reading someone’s thoughts is very different from downloading everything they’ve ever read. Just build the machine to answer “Yes, this person is being deceptive” or “No, they are not” and provide no other output, discarding all other input at the end of each session.
I think you missed the point, or at least what I took to be the point. Nobody who has ever read a classified document, or had a confidential conversation with a government official (of our government or a foreign one) would ever be able to put on a mind reading head band, for fear of leaking information they shouldn’t. People who have run for President in the last fifty years include a former Director of Central Intelligence, a former longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a former US Navy captain, a former US Navy officer who worked on nuclear submarines, several sitting or former Vice Presidents, and several sitting or former Presidents. None of these people would be able to put on a mind reading headband for fear of revealing classified information.
Even setting that concern aside, considering how little public scrutiny major candidates have submitted themselves to in recent elections, it seems incredibly implausible that they would submit themselves to even more public scrutiny in the form of mind reading.
Assuming a Truth Machine can be built at all, building one that doesn’t leak classified intel shouldn’t be a problem. Reading someone’s thoughts is very different from downloading everything they’ve ever read. Just build the machine to answer “Yes, this person is being deceptive” or “No, they are not” and provide no other output, discarding all other input at the end of each session.